Cleveland Ranked Most Miserable: How The City Is Haunted By Corruption

OK, we are starting with one of those irritating Forbes lists again from last month. Mostly it's reasoning is a subjective joke. Snow and cold are listed as big negatives, even though many people love it. Is the heat in Houston and New Orleans counted the same way?

But, digging underneath one gets to a bunch of things like unemployment rates, foreclosure rates, crime and public corruption that few can dispute are bad.

In fact, public corruption seems to have been the key to making Cleveland this year's winner. Cleveland Scene has an article about the way the city is still scarred by past mistakes and the deep perceptions they have left. It's filled with stories one really finds hard to believe.

"The Justice Center was the largest public project of its time and was ripe with cost overruns and rumors of corruption. I remember sitting in the old Pewter Mug on Public Square while politicians and businessmen handicapped the payoffs and the recipients. No major investigation was launched, but street talk spoke of sums of money so large that retirement from public office was a possibility. There is no doubt that the failure to install light switches was a byproduct of corrupt and incompetent management."